


Fire and Ice

by benjaminrussell



Series: Coldwave Week 2017 [3]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), Supergirl (TV 2015), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Earth-38, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-10
Updated: 2017-08-10
Packaged: 2018-12-13 18:43:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11766039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/benjaminrussell/pseuds/benjaminrussell
Summary: Coldwave Week 2017 Day 4 - Alternate EarthTheir names are Mick Rory and Leonard Snart. To the outside world they're no-one special, but secretly they fight crime as the vigilantes Fire and Ice.Largely ignored by both sides of the law, they're pretty surprised when Supergirl pays them a visit to ask for Mick's help.





	Fire and Ice

Fire and Ice (yeah okay, not the most imaginative aliases, but they hadn’t actually picked them themselves and at least they were descriptive) were stood over their latest captive, a middle aged thug who was handcuffed and unconscious, debating whether to take her to the police station or to just call in an anonymous tip, when Supergirl appeared at the end of the alley. They shared a glance, about to make a run for it because they’d found that the law didn’t take too kindly to vigilantes, and everyone knew that Supergirl worked with the government in some capacity, when she spoke up.

“Mick! I need your help!” Len glanced at Mick, his expression clearly reading, ‘How on Earth does Supergirl know your name?’

“I think you’ve got the wrong person,” Mick replied gruffly, hand hovering subtly near where his gun was strapped to his hip. Neither of them wanted to hurt her, if even they could, and it could well be a real request for help, hero to (semi) hero, but it could also be a trick of some kind; a ruse so the cops could arrest them. They’d learnt to be wary.

“Nope,” Supergirl smiled, walking closer, “Mick Rory. Heatwave. A guy you can always count on.” When Mick didn’t immediately respond, she turned her attention to Len, and it was only then that her smile slipped.

“...Leonard Snart?” Another shared glance, silently agreeing that it was futile to deny it any longer when she clearly knew who they were, and then Len demanded, “How do you know who we are? And Mick’s never gone by Heatwave, even if it is a much better codename than Fire.”

“Wait, Fire and Ice are heroes? I’ve heard rumours about criminals running scared but I didn’t realise that they were talking about actual people,” She said, momentarily distracted from the reason she was apparently there. Len grinned, glad that their actions were having an effect on the criminal populace on a larger scale than just getting odd bad guys off the streets, and pleasantly surprised by the fact that Supergirl of all people had just called them heroes.

“Yeah, we’re real alright. But we didn’t come up with our own codenames, because otherwise they would have been a lot cooler.” Mick snorted and muttered, “That’s debatable - they would have been goddamn puns instead.”

“How did you get your names then? I haven’t seen any news articles mentioning you by name,” Supergirl asked, looking genuinely curious and also weirdly happy about the conversation. Len filed that fact away to consider later, and prepared himself to tell the story - their origin story (the fact that they had an origin story filled Len with glee and made Mick roll his eyes affectionately at his partner’s excitement).

“Soon after we’d started patrolling, we were hunting down this guy who’d terrorised a local shopkeeper but who the cops weren’t doing anything about because there wasn’t enough evidence against him. We eventually tracked him to his hideout and cornered him, blocking both the exits. Mick told him to give himself up but as he refused, threatening to shoot us both if we didn’t let him go, I asked him a simple question,” Len recounted, fighting down a grin as he approached the line he was so proud of. He just knew Mick was inwardly laughing at him, but he didn’t care. He loved putting on a show, whether it was just for a low level thief or for Supergirl herself.

“Do you want to die by fire or ice?” He paused for a beat, before falling back into his normal speech pattern and clarifying, “We would never actually kill anyone, but it helps our cause if the bad guys think we might.” Mick nodded emphatically in agreement, possibly wanting even more than Len did for Supergirl to not think them murderers. She had come to him for help after all, even if neither of them had any idea why given that they’d never even met her before.

“After we left him for the cops to find, with a surveillance tape we found that proved his guilt, he must have told his prison buddies because a week or two later we overheard some criminals complaining about there being two more vigilantes – Fire and Ice. And the names got passed around by word of mouth and stuck, so eventually we started calling ourselves them as well.”

“We once really confused some guy by telling them that Fire and Ice weren’t our names,” Mick added, the corners of his mouth twitching up at the memory.

“I didn’t pick my name either,” Supergirl offered, smiling at them both even as her eyes kept darting in Len’s direction. His presence was clearly making her uncomfortable, and while she was clearly being polite and trying to hide it, she wasn’t exactly being subtle about it.

“Alright, spit it out,” Len finally demanded, “What do you want, and why do you keep looking at me like that?”

“Why were you expecting me to be alone?” Mick asked, frowning at her as if he could read it from her face. Mick might be a lot more intuitive than Len when it came to reading people, but he wasn’t that good. Supergirl looked between them, glanced at the unconscious woman on the floor, and then sighed, “It’s a long story. How about I tell you over a drink?”

“You asking us out, Skirt?” Mick joked, unable to resist despite the weird circumstances. Len was clearly rubbing off on him, even if he hadn’t quite resorted to puns yet. Interestingly, Supergirl’s reaction to the nickname was a mix of resignation and affection, further pointing to her and Mick having met before and even possibly being friends, despite it being something that certainly wasn’t the case. It was her blush though, that finally convinced Len that she was being honest with them. There was definitely something odd going on, but it wasn’t a trick or a trap. She genuinely wanted Mick’s help and seemed to have no doubt that it would be given, a confidence which came from familiarity, rather than the attitude of someone who always expected to get their own way.

“Back in a moment,” She said instead of replying, before scooping up the thug in her arms and flying off.

“You’re certain you were never BFFs with Supergirl and conveniently forgot to tell me about it?” Len asked, raising an eyebrow at Mick. His partner looked at him askance, his expression conveying perfectly his disbelief at Len’s question.

“One, when would I have had time to befriend National City’s superhero, and two, I can’t believe you just said ‘BFFs’.” Len opened his mouth to reply, but then Supergirl landed next to them sans criminal, and he shut it again – finding out what was going on was more important than their banter.

“Okay, now that that’s sorted,” She said, “Where would you like to go?” Mick shrugged and stated, “We can’t take her to Saints.”

“Nah, we’d lose all chance at listening in on the gossip if we walked in with Supergirl,” Len agreed, shooting her an apologetic look, “It’s a bar frequented by criminals, and where we get a lot of our intel.” He caught himself before he said anything else, but regardless he was still a little unsettled by how open he was being with her. The only other person he’d been that open with upon first meeting them was Mick, and that had soon turned into a partnership – one that started out as partners in petty crime, saw them confess their feelings for each other and start dating, and now most recently, it had turned into one of vigilante justice. He was sure Mick must have made the same connection, but he refused to look at him to confirm it. Luckily, Supergirl provided a distraction by offering, “I know a bar we can go to. It’s not far from here.” She then paused, debating something, before adding, “I can’t really go there as Supergirl though. Not that anywhere would be good to go to for privacy as Supergirl.” She looked slightly embarrassed at that, but didn’t let it deter her, reciting the address of the bar.

“I’ll meet you there in ten minutes?” She asked, once again glancing between the two of them to make sure they were both happy with that suggestion.

“Sure,” Len agreed, catching Mick’s nod out of the corner of his eye. The meeting time and place sorted, Supergirl shot them another sunshine smile and shot off into the air once more, leaving Len and Mick alone in the alley.

“Drinks with Supergirl, huh,” Mick commented, looking up at the sky as if she wasn’t long gone.

“I would’ve suggested going after this woman much sooner if I’d known it’d get us a date with a superhero,” Len quipped, before reaching up and removing his goggles, shoving them in the pocket of his leather jacket.

“I reckon we can detour via the safe house to change and still get there in time,” He said, starting towards the end of the alley. Mick just gave him a grunt in response, but it was enough – they knew each other well enough by now that Len could tell his partner agreed that it would be better if they didn’t turn up at the bar in their costumes.

***

Ten minutes later, Mick and Len were sitting down at a table in the back corner of the bar, drinks in hand. They’d got some glances as they’d walked in, but Len was reasonably certain that they were just because they were new faces and notably human, unlike the majority of the bar’s patrons, and his suspicion was confirmed when the attention on them disappeared once it became clear they weren’t looking for trouble. Their eyes were drawn to the door as a young blonde woman entered, but Len’s gaze was already moving on before he registered who he was looking at. She blended into the crowd in a way that Supergirl could never hope to do, but it had to be the same person now that he looked at her again. In fact he was surprised that more people didn’t recognise her, given that all she seemed to have done was change her clothes, tie her hair back and put on some glasses. She headed to the bar to get herself a drink, had a brief conversation with the bartender that led him believe she knew him, and then looked around. Mick immediately beckoned her over, proving that he’d been watching her just as Len had. She looked surprised to be recognised so quickly, but didn’t comment on it, instead just joining them at the table with a smile and a quiet ‘hello’.

“How about you start by explaining how you know Mick?” Len suggested, jumping straight into it. Mick snorted and then elbowed Len and butted in with, “How about first we introduce ourselves properly? You seem to know it already, but I’m Mick, and this rude asshole here is Len.” Len shot him a wounded look, but they both knew he meant it as much as Mick meant the insult, i.e. barely seriously and completely affectionately. It was basically their form of flirting. Supergirl actually giggled, which was something Len didn’t think adults actually did outside of romcoms, so he decided that she was officially the happiest person he’d ever met, especially now she’d stopped staring at Len like she’d seen a ghost.

“I’m Kara,” She replied, making an aborted movement that looked like she’d been about to offer her hand to shake. She took a sip of her drink, before then answering Len’s question, “And I know Mick, well, I know it sounds crazy but I know an alternate version of him. You. That Mick is a super villain turned time travelling hero, and he’s my friend.” Even Len didn’t know what to say to that, and he had a quip for everything. He settled for sending Mick a smug grin, and upon catching Kara’s confused look, explained, “We’ve been arguing for years about whether alternate dimensions exist.”

“He’s a Nerd,” Mick added, somehow managing to convey his capitalisation of ‘nerd’, “If you couldn’t tell.”

“You love me for it,” Len retorted, grin widening when Mick rolled his eyes but didn’t deny it. Turning his attention back to Kara, he asked, “So why didn’t you go to the other version of Mick for help?” He also had lots of questions about the alternate universe, like whether there was more than one and if they all had doubles, but he figured they could wait. As much as it pained him to admit it, finding out what Kara actually wanted was more important.

“He’s hard to track down, with the time travel and all,” Kara explained, pausing and glancing at Len again before continuing, “And I don’t want to ask him to leave his world when I don’t know how long I’ll need help for.” Len was about to demand to know what had happened to him in the other universe when Mick spoke up, beating him to it, “What happened to the other version of Len?” Kara looked uncomfortable, but her voice was mostly steady when she replied, “He sacrificed himself to save the world.” Len went still, and beside him he heard Mick suck in a sharp breath, and felt him press his leg against Len’s, reassuring them both that what had happened to the alternate versions of themselves hadn’t happened to them. They were still together and very much alive. Len inwardly shuddered to think what the other Mick must be going through, because he couldn’t imagine a universe where the two of them weren’t important to each other, and he knew Mick loved him as much as he loved Mick, and if he lost his partner he’d be broken.

“I need someone who can break into the bad guys’ lair but can also hold their own in a fight,” Kara said after a couple of minutes silence, breaking the tension that had grown around the table.

“When my friend Winn told me what needed doing, I immediately thought of Mick, but as he would be hard to get hold of, I figured I’d try and find this Earth’s version, and so here I am.” Len looked sideways at Mick, wordlessly confirmed they were thinking the same thing, and then turned back to Kara and said deceptively casually, “I think we can manage that.” Inside he was excited about the idea of a team-up with Supergirl, but he still had some dignity, no matter what Mick said.

“I trust getting two vigilantes instead of one isn’t a problem?” He continued, keeping the casual tone although it was probably obvious even to Kara that she wouldn’t be receiving help if she did have a problem with Len. Mick and Len both agreed that they worked much better together than alone as they had different strengths and compensated for each other’s weaknesses, much like the saying ‘the whole is stronger than the sum of its parts’.

“No, it’s great,” Kara smiled, the ‘that you’re not dead’ going unsaid, “The more the merrier. And if J’onn doesn’t like it, he will just have to deal with it.”

“What happens now?” Mick asked, before downing the last of his beer.

“I’ll take you to the DEO and you can meet the others, and then we can make a plan for breaking in,” Kara told them.

“DEO?” Len could guess what it was, having heard all sorts of rumours about a secret government agency hunting and/or helping aliens, but he wanted to make sure he knew what they were walking into beforehand. Kara glanced over her shoulder to make sure there still wasn’t anyone listening to their conversation, and then answered, “The Department of Extra-Normal Operations. They deal with aliens and weird stuff. And work with Supergirl.”

“A government facility,” Mick stated, sitting up straighter. Len was a little on edge too about the thought of walking into a government building that clearly dealt with security, but he was trying to hide it behind his usual cool, calm demeanour.

“Is that a problem?” Kara asked, looking adorably confused.

“The police don’t take too kindly to vigilantes,” Len explained in a low voice, “Even though we deal with the criminals they can’t.”

“They wanna ‘detain us for questioning’,” Mick added, expression making it clear what he thought of that idea. Kara’s expression however cleared at their words, and she said happily, “Oh you don’t need to worry about that. No-one at the DEO’s going to arrest you, and anyway I’ve got official permission to enlist your help.” She beamed at them both, which served to convince Len that if there was any trouble on that front, they’d have Supergirl on their side, and even the NCPD would have trouble arguing with her. Well, except Detective Sawyer. Len and Mick had met her when they’d run into each other whilst after the same drug dealer a while ago, and the resulting takedown had led to an agreement that benefited all of them. Detective Sawyer would make sure all the criminals they caught were properly arrested and processed as long as they provided her with their evidence, and would look the other way about them breaking the law as long as they never went too far. She even gave them occasional tips about criminals to go after. The arrangement meant that they saw a fair bit of her, and so having been able to get a good judge of her character, he could easily picture her going up against Supergirl if she thought the superhero had done something wrong. He snickered at the thought, drawing both Mick and Kara’s attention.

“I was just thinking about our police friend arguing with Supergirl,” Len said, which while a good enough explanation for Mick, didn’t really clarify anything for Kara, but he didn’t want to give away the Detective’s identity when her career would be on the line if anyone found out about their arrangement. Despite that, he did add, “There’s one cop who likes us, and suffice to say, they wouldn’t back down, even against Supergirl.” Kara smiled a little and replied, “I know a cop like that too.”

“We going now or later?” Mick asked, steering the conversation back to the topic at hand, something he’d had lots of practice at from when Len went off on a tangent about one of his many interests, whether it be sci-fi, sharks, or superheroes, or even something that didn’t begin with ‘s’.

“Now’s good, unless you have something you need to do first?” Kara said questioningly. Mick shook his head, and Len did the same before enquiring, “Are we alright like this or should we change back into our costumes?” Kara thought about it for a moment, and then replied, “Whichever you prefer. Everyone is used to Supergirl wandering around there so another couple of heroes wouldn’t be out of place, but the people working on this already know who you are.” She looked apologetic at that, but Len wasn’t too bothered. If she said that they didn’t need to worry about potentially being arrested, then hiding their identities was less important, and he highly doubted anyone from a government agency would have any reason to go after Fire and Ice because of a criminal they’d gotten arrested. That was the sort of thing they screened for, after all. In the worst case scenario, where the knowledge of who they were got back to the wrong people, the only people actually at risk would be Len and Mick themselves. Lisa was off at a training retreat preparing for the Winter Olympics, and could look after herself anyway, and if someone tried to go after the Rory clan, Len would feel sorry for them. He unreservedly believed that Mick’s ma would shame them into turning themselves in before they touched a hair on any of her family’s heads. He’d been on the receiving end of one of Mrs Rory’s telling offs once, and he never wanted her disappointment directed at him again.

“If the people we’ll be working with already know our identities, then we may as well just go like this,” Len said, voicing his thoughts. He finished off his drink and then pushed his chair back and got to his feet. Mick and Kara followed suit, and the three of them headed towards the door.

***

Aside from a quick stop so Kara could become Supergirl again, they made their way straight to the DEO. Len thought they might have some trouble getting in, but apparently turning up with Supergirl was all they needed, as the guard didn’t even ask for their names.  Kara led them to what looked to be the main hub of the building, a large room with lots of computers and giant screens and busy looking people. In the centre of the room four people were stood, deep in discussion. Two of them were dressed in tactical outfits, looking every inch what Len had expected from a secret government military base, while one of the guys looked more suited to an office, wearing a shirt and trousers with a tablet in his hand, and fourth person was dressed in dark jeans and a leather jacket. As they got closer, the fourth person turned slightly and Len got a better look at her, half surprised and half feeling like he should have expected it, because gesturing animatedly to illustrate whatever point she was making, was Detective Sawyer herself. He nudged Mick with his elbow, drawing his partner’s attention from cataloguing all the entrances and exits, and nodded towards the group of four that they were heading towards. Mick snorted and muttered, “What a surprise.” Then the man with the tablet noticed Kara and smiled, drawing the others’ attention to the new arrivals. A few more steps and they joined the gathering, Kara immediately starting with the introductions, “This is J’onn Jones, the director of the DEO; my sister Alex, who’s second in command here; Winn, he’s a tech genius; and Detective Maggie Sawyer of the NCPD.”

“We’ve met,” Detective Sawyer said drily, presumably not bothered about these people knowing about their arrangement.

“This is Mick, who I’ve told you about, and his partner, Len, who’s also going to help us,” Kara continued for the benefit of the other three.

“You’re heroes, right? Do you have code names and costumes?” Winn asked enthusiastically, hinting that he was just as much of a superhero geek that Len was.

Len nodded with a grin and replied, “Yeah. As I was saying to Supergirl earlier, we didn’t pick our own names, but we go by Fire and Ice, to match our weapons.” Kara then added, “I know them better as Captain Cold and Heatwave.”

 


End file.
